Driver in fatal Clifton hit-and-run gets 19 years

Jason Askew, with lawyer Paul Uhlik, at sentencing for a hit-and-run accident in Clifton in 2012.

To everyone else, the evidence was airtight, but a driver sentenced to 19 years in prison denied to the last that he left the scene and attempted a coverup after his SUV struck and killed two pedestrians in Clifton in 2012.

“I have never hurt anybody in my life,” Jason Askew said at his sentencing Friday in Superior Court in Paterson. He insisted that he was innocent, having initially told investigators he had hit a deer. “I just think that the jury convicted me way before the trial started,” he said.

A detective with the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office, left, at the Route 46 intersection in March 2012 after two pedestrians were struck and killed.

Judge Miguel de la Carrera did not agree.

“It is disturbing to see the defendant’s lack of remorse and continued denial,” the judge said. “The evidence was absolutely overwhelming.”

Prosecutors had argued during Askew’s trial that he struck Jhasleidy Benjumea-Bastidas, 28, of Passaic and Jose Fernandez-Minaya, 35, of Brooklyn on Route 46 eastbound on March 17, 2012.

Askew kept driving after the crash, leaving the victims sprawled across the roadway, prosecutors said. He did not report the crash to police. When detectives tracked him down a few weeks later, they asked him why his Cadillac Escalade was being repaired in an auto shop. He said he had struck a deer on Route 19, prosecutors said.

Investigators later found the victims’ DNA and hair samples on Askew’s vehicle, prosecutors said. They also said broken pieces of a grille and headlights found at the scene matched the pieces missing on Askew’s Escalade.

Askew’s attorney, Paul Uhlik, had said the accident happened on a foggy night during low visibility. He also said Benjumea-Bastidas and Fernandez-Minaya were out drinking that night, and that they were in the roadway, not the sidewalk, when they were struck.

Uhlik noted as well that Askew had reported the damage to his insurance company shortly thereafter, an indication that he wasn’t trying to cover up the incident.

Trial testimony showed that Askew, now 44, had been out drinking with a friend just before the accident. The judge said alcohol was probably a factor in the crash, but that remains unknown because weeks had passed by the time Askew was identified as the driver, which made it impossible to conduct tests to determine intoxication.

Prosecutors have said that without evidence of intoxication, speeding or other reckless behavior, they were unable to charge Askew with the more serious offense of vehicular homicide, which would have meant more prison time.

Askew was convicted of leaving the scene of a fatal accident, endangering an injured victim, hindering apprehension and tampering with evidence. The sentence, which included consecutive terms because of the multiple victims, does not carry a mandatory minimum term, which means Askew could make parole after serving about a third of the sentence.

Jason Statuto, an assistant Passaic County prosecutor, said Friday that Askew obviously did not wake up that day intending to hurt anyone.

“But this case is not about the accident,” he said. “This case is about the choice he made and the decisions he made after the accident. It’s about the coverup and lies.”

Statuto said the sentence should serve as a deterrent for others as well as for Askew. “When people cause other people harm, at the very least they should call an ambulance,” he said.

Both victims worked at International Delight, a bakery on Brighton Road in Clifton. On the night of the accident, they had gone to a club in Passaic to celebrate a colleague’s birthday.

They and two others were returning home when Benjumea-Bastidas, who was driving, got lost and stopped the car on Route 46 near Seventh Street, witnesses testified.

All four got out of the car after an argument started. Two returned to the car, but Benjumea-Bastidas and Fernandez-Minaya remained behind, somehow ending up on the highway just before being struck by the Escalade, according to trial testimony.

Carrera, the judge, said Friday that Askew is likely to commit a similar offense in the future, given his “significantly bad” driving record. It includes five reported accidents, several speeding tickets and a summons for driving with a suspended license.